Overview
Contract J.A.C.K. (Just Another Contract Killer) is built on the same Lithtech Jupiter engine as
No One Lives Forever 2 and therefore recycles textures, weapons, enemies and sounds from it. The game ditches
Cate Archer as a main character and focuses on John Jack, a contract problem solver. John is not like Cate in the sense that he is much more straight forward and therefore does not employ the element of stealth very well and instead makes slaughtering enemies a better alternative. Other features that were removed include skill building, searching bodies for ammunition, and side objectives. Contract J.A.C.K. also lacked the cool gadgets that were found in the previous NOLF games and was also much shorter in length spanning only 7 chapters. There is a multi-player element that offers the classic Deathmatch mode and two new modes: "Doomsday", and "Demolition". Doomsday mode has two teams searching for three parts of a device that blows up the other team when fully assembled. Demolition mode has three objectives that one team must seek out and plant C4 charges at.
Plot
J.A.C.K. is much more action oriented. The game takes place between the events of
NOLF and
NOLF2 and follows John Jack, a professional killer. The game begins with Jack escaping death at the hands of rival thugs. Jack is contacted by
Dimitrij Volkov and is hired by H.A.R.M. to take on another organization by the name Danger Danger. Like previous NOLF games, J.A.C.K. has missions that take place in some exotic locations such as heading to a rocket base to stop Danger Danger from hijacking a Czechoslovakian rocket and going to the moon to rescue H.A.R.M. scientists.
Gameplay
Unlike the NOLF games, J.A.C.K. is focused much more on action and intense moments and achieves these by throwing wave after wave of enemies at the player. There are no interesting spy gadgets and there is no stealth option to speak of. Another feature that the NOLF games had that Contract J.A.C.K. does not, were hundreds of intelligence items that would tell the story of terrorist organizations and would even give rewards.
Reception
Contract J.A.C.K. was a highly anticipated game that disappointed most NOLF fans and was ultimately received rather poorly with mediocre ratings.
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